


Take Me Away

by rizcriz



Series: tumblr is dying time to get compiling [37]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 15:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16956846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rizcriz/pseuds/rizcriz
Summary: In which, Quentin and Eliot give up magic for a happy life.





	Take Me Away

They meet in a little coffee shop. It feels set up, when a tall man with curly hair bumps into Quentin, and spills his both of their coffees all over them. Quentin can’t even freak out, beyond staring at the stain seeping through the mans white shirt, and the soft, billowing curls of his hair. **  
**

There’s somebody about him that seems familiar. But it doesn’t matter, because the man is freaking out.

“Fuckity fuck fuck!” He spreads his arms–his long, long arms–wide, and shakes off the coffee clinging to his fingertips.

It flies through the air and lands on Quentin’s nose. Quentin stumbles back a step, blinking, but before he can trip over his own feet, because that’s exactly who he is–the man reaches out with those long, lithe arms, and catches him by the wrist with sticky, warm fingers. Quentin blinks up at him blankly.

“Thank you,” He says, somewhat awed.

The man just smirks down at him. “You’re a mess.”

Quentin huffs a laugh out through his nose and nods, shaking his hair from it’s precarious palce tucked behind his ear. “You have no idea,” He says, before kneeling down to pick up their cups. It takes a moment to register that he’s just gotten down on his knees in front of quite possibly the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen, but when he it does, he’s pretty sure they can see how red his cheeks are from space.

But the man leans down with napkins he’d probably nicked from the counter, and helps Quentin clean up their mess. He pauses mid sweep of expensive coffee, and looks through the curly bangs of his hair, to quirk the corner of his mouth up and say, “I’m Eliot.” Quentin looks up through his own hair; though he imagines he looks much more manic than dreamy like his counterpart. He blinks up at him, and Eliot shrugs a shoulder. “I thought we should introduce ourselves considering.”

“Considering?”

“We’re going to be taking each others clothes off.”

Quentin chokes on his own spit and sits up to stare at him, wide eyed.

The man–Eliot, god even the name is pretty–tilts his head, and appears to be holding back a laugh. A little chuckle bubbles out when he says, “Dry cleaning. I’ll clean yours, you clean mine.” He sits up on his haunches, resting his hands on his thighs, to examine him. “And if we’re doing that, we may as well just exchange numbers. You know. In case the dry cleaning doesn’t get the coffee out.” He shrugs his shoulder, “Or, in case it does. We could always get coffee–and not spill it all over each other.”

Quentin blanches.

Is the hottest guy in the world, in all worlds probably, flirting with him?

“Are you–”

“Asking you out?” Eliot quirks an eyebrow, “I am. It’d be easier if I knew your name. I doubt I can keep calling you a sexy tornado, like i am in my head.”

“Sexy … tornado?”

“You’re a mess. But you’re–”

“Ah.” Quentin clears his throat and nods. “I’m uh, I’m Quentin. Coldwater.”

“A last name? We’re really going places here,” Eliot teases, before leaning forward to swipe up the last of the coffee and stand up. “Like, back to the counter.” He holds his hand out for him, “I need my daily coffee. From the look of it, so do you?”

Quentin swallows thickly and reaches up to take his hand.

He’s pretty sure he imagines the electric shock that stretches between their skin when they touch, but Eliot looks like he’s felt it too. But he doesn’t have a lot of time to think on it, because Eliot pulls him to his feet, and leads him to the counter, barely taking the time to toss their garbage in the trash on the way.

*

Two months later, a short, brunette woman approaches their usual table at the coffee shop, pulls a chair up and sits down with them.

Eliot blinks at her, then looks at Quentin with a matching look of confusion. He must realize that Quentin has no idea who this woman is, because he turns back to her, and says, “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” She says, reaching across the table and grabbing a packet of sugar.

“No,” Eliot says, much slower this time, “We’re sitting here.”

She rolls her eyes, “And now I’m sitting with you.” Neither of them respond so she sighs, squaring her shoulders. “Look here, you fucks; I gave up magic to be here with you, because somehow a life of magic isn’t the same without my two favorite idiots. So, be nice or you get all your bad memories back.” She sneers, though it seems mostly to herself. “If I can convince someone else to cast the spell since I made them erase all knowledge of spells I knew from my mind, like a fucking idiot.”

Eliot looks across the table at Quentin, quirking an eyebrow. He shrugs a shoulder, and Quentin already know to take that as him embracing the insanity.

Which is one of those Eliot traits Quentin’s not sure is one of his best. But without it, he doubts he’d be sitting at this table with him. So he opts to ride the crazy train, too.

“All right,” Eliot says, smiling politely at the woman. “You realize you sound like a lunatic right?”

Which is not … where Quentin expected him to take this.

The woman, to her credit, merely grins. Then, ridiculously, she reaches up and pats Eliot’s cheek fondly, like she’s known him all her life, and goes back to pouring sugar in her coffee. “El,” She says, without looking up at him, “You may have given up on magic and all the danger that comes with it, including your memories, but if you try to sit there and pretend you don’t feel like you know me, I might actually risk the internal fire just to try and force a spell back to the surface,” She glances up at him through her eyelashes, “So I can turn you into a fucking frog.” Her eyes dart over to Quentin. “Then we’ll see if True Loves kiss is all it’s cracked out to be.”

Quentin blinks. “Wait–whoa–we, uh, we just–” He breaks off, looking at Eliot, expecting him to join him in telling her that they’ve only been dating for two months, but he’s watching the woman like she’s the most interesting thing in the room.

Which, fair.

But then the corners of his mouth turn upwards. “I don’t know you,” He says, leaning back in his chair, “But I like you.”

She breathes deep through her nose, shaking her head. “I knew i shouldve just come with you two idiots.” She looks over her coffee at Quentin again. “Q, come on. You’ve got to–”

“How do you know our names?”

“Because I’m the one who wiped your minds and helped you set up new lives, nitwit.”

“Hey, don’t talk to him like–”

“Seriously. Neither of you have even the slightest feeling of knowing who I am?” They shake their heads. “Margo. I literally–”

That catches Quentin off guard, and he snaps his neck towards her from where he’d been turning to look at Eliot incredulously. “Margo?” He interrupts, “The letter? That Margo?”

She tilts her head, for once seeming to be the confused one. “Letter?”

Eliot seems just as confused, turning to look at him. “You got a letter from a Margo, too?”

“Not from,” Quentin replies without looking away from her, “About.”

Margo falls back in her chair. “Well now I’m confused,” She says, clapping her hands together and then dropping them in her lap. It triggers a bit of deja vu from something–something Quentin can’t quite catch. “I didn’t write any letters.”

“My friend–my old friend, I guess. Julia,” he furrows his brow with a shake of his head, “She said I can’t forget Margo, because ‘she can only be stubborn for so long’ or something. I had no idea what it meant.”

“I’ll be,” Margo mutters, shaking her head. “Cheeky bitch.”

“Uhm, what?”

“Nothing,” She waves a hand and leans in, nodding at Eliot. “What’d your letter say?”

“Pretty much the same thing, but it said it came from a Margo. Just, ‘I won’t always be a stubborn bitch, don’t worry El. You’ll get your Bambi back soon. Love, Margo.’”

She smirks. “Hm,” Then she leans back again, shaking her head with a knowing smile on her lip. “I should've known she wouldn’t let me remember.”

“What are you talking about?”

She waves her hand nonchalantly as she reaches for her coffee. “I’m not sure when, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to forget this whole conversation. And then we’re going to go on and live the lives our friends think we deserve.”

“Which is?”

She swallows, shrugging her shoulder, and staring into her coffee cup. “Happy, I guess.” She finally looks up at them after a few beats. “And annoyingly, they were right when they said I couldn’t do that without you two idiots. So, here I am. Giving up my throne so Fen–of all people–can rule Fillory, and so I can live a boring, meager little life as a normal person.” She looks just as surprised and confused as Quentin feels. “All because you two wanted a chance to grow old together again.” She mimes gagging, but there’s a little smile curling the corner of her mouth.

Eliot inhales slowly, before reaching for his own coffee and bringing it to his lips. “Fuck it,” He says, looking over the lid at Quentin. “I like her. Let’s play along.”

Quentin shrugs too. Why not?

Even if she does kind of scare him.

**

A year later three more people join them at their coffee table, and two more a few weeks after that. They never remember the conversations long after they leave the table. But they never leave any of them behind.

And before long, none of them remember a life before coffees on Tuesday, and vodka on Friday’s. There are no monsters or nightmares or deaths. Unless the looks Penny shoots Quentin on occassion eventually kill him.

But, they’re happy. And they don’t even know that there was a time where they weren’t.

Jane smiles from her place in her time bubble, smiling to herself.

They had to suffer, but it never had to permanent.

 


End file.
